Luck Be a Lady Read Online Free PDF Page A

officers would sooner condemn their own houses than one of Nick’s.
    But those buildings Dixon had condemned were tricky. Whitechapel’s western border poked like a sore thumb into the neighboring parish of St. Luke’s. No coincidence, Nick supposed, that the plots to left and right, which stood in St. Luke’s, had been razed a year ago. Pilcher obviously had plans for that street. But if he thought he could dip into Whitechapel to effect them, he had a hard lesson coming.
    On the landing, a tenant stepped aside, bowing. Nick nodded as he passed, sparing a glance for the polished window that looked onto a sea of fine, new roofs. This entire block—and the nine or ten streets around it—would stand till kingdom come, thanks to him. As for how he paid for the constant improvements—whether his coin was earned through fair means or foul—his tenants did not care. As long as the roof kept the rain outand the rent stayed reasonable, they’d bow to him gladly, of their own free will.
    That was how he wanted it. What good was respect earned by force? That wasn’t respect at all.
    In the street, he came to a stop, drawing a long breath of the pungent air. The smell of fried oysters was coming from Neddie’s, the pub where he always broke his fast. But today, he lacked the appetite. Irritation had killed it.
    Thundering footsteps approached from behind. Nick didn’t bother to turn, because a knot of men outside Neddie’s had raised their hands in greeting, and in their faces, he saw no alarm. This place, these people, were his. If a threat was coming, they’d be charging to meet it, weapons in hand.
    Johnson joined him, breathing heavily. The Englishman wasn’t built for speed, but he could slip into places that an Irishman found . . . uncomfortable. Nick had hired him as an experiment. How far did money take you, without the ties of kinship?
    So far, it had gone a nice distance. “Shall I make inquiries into Pilcher?” Johnson gasped. “Can’t say I know the name, but somebody will. At the docks, maybe.”
    â€œNo, that’s fine.” Johnson knew the docks better than almost anyone, for he had been one of the Royals, once—that group of men chosen first for work each morning at the quays. It was there that Nick had first met him, as a boy of ten or eleven.
    So perhaps the experiment wasn’t so pure, after all. They shared a kind of kinship, even if it wasn’t one to cherish. Dock work could be a sight more brutal than torture, depending on the cargo—or the victim.
    Today’s torture should have brightened his mood. He’d gotten a name, at last. Why, then, did he feel so befouled?
    Bloody toffs. They looted and despoiled without a care for the cost. Nick had seventy-six tenants in those condemned buildings. Their fates never troubled a man like Pilcher.
    â€œI could follow him,” Johnson offered. “He’s heading for the high road.”
    Nick glanced back, spying Dixon’s hobbling retreat. A lick of humor lightened his mood. “Maybe you could even catch him, at that.”
    Johnson went red. Folks in these parts, now that they’d grown accustomed to him, had taken to calling him Blushes. It was a natural wonder that a giant with a pierced ear and a head as bald as a pirate’s could color more brightly than a girl. “I wouldn’t let him get away, sir.”
    â€œNo need.” Pilcher’s henchman wasn’t the problem. A vestry or district could submit petitions under the Torrens and Cross Acts until they ran out of ink, but it took approval from the Municipal Board of Works for a building to be condemned.
    Pilcher sat on that board, but a single vote could not do anything. He must have powerful allies—which meant that Nick needed allies there, too.
    Nick faced front again, surveying the road. A gaggle of children were playing by Lola’s Alley—truants, all. No